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Almost 900 Secret Service employees were infected with COVID
Records obtained by a government watchdog show that roughly 900 U.S. Secret Service employees tested positive for the coronavirus

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/900-secret-service-employees-infected-covid-78421561

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WASHINGTON -- Roughly 900 U.S. Secret Service employees tested positive for the coronavirus, according to government records obtained by a government watchdog group.

Secret Service records show that 881 people on the agency payroll were diagnosed with COVID-19 between March 1, 2020 and March 9, 2021, according to documents obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington .

The records received through a Freedom of Information Act request did not include the names or assignments of those who tested positive. But more than half — 477 — worked in the special agent division, which is responsible for protecting the president and vice president, as well as the families of these leaders and other government officials.

CREW noted that the Trump administration took actions that risked exposure to Secret Service workers, but it could not verify a direct connection to possible infections because the identities of those infected remains private.

 

 

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2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

The argument is kinda non-sensical imho. I mean that sounds like: as long as the trust isn't active, I can spend all the money as I see fit (in extreme, it's fine to brun through the entire estate, before the trust is active thus starting the trust with nothing). The judge presiding over this case pretty much agreed that this argument wasn't valid, as he granted standing to the Cali. AG office.

Otherwise, yeah, Harris's office pointed out that, the Simone Kelly could go to jail over her financial shenanigans with the estate's money (embezzlement/misappropriation of funds). Offering her to make it all go away, if she stopped challenging the will under French inheritance law. That can be read in the settlement. Like I said, the threat of jail time was very visible between the lines there.

Like I said, I find very little fault at the Cali's AG's handling over the matter. If Simone Kelly has an axe to grind, then she should take it to lawyers drafting her mum's will, or her mum in some sorta afterlife or an episode of Hollywood Medium hosted by Random Fraud.

I would suspect that if one uses a lawyer in California to write up a will using California law, then that person's intentions are pretty clear. Not using a French lawyer and French law also shows the intent of the person. As such a court has to take that into account which they did.

Where is the problem?

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9 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

1. He was known for actually reading the briefing materials and the lower court record and I think it is correct that his mind was firmly made up by the time of oral argument (90 percent plus of the time). 
 

I would imagine it would be rather depressing to have to make your argument knowing a justice probably doesn't care about what you're saying.

8 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The key, in my opinion, was the tautological definition of “student athlete” as unpaid in order to justify not paying all student athletes in the NCAA.  These “unpaid internships” can and do lead to paid positions in the same organization as such the circumstances are a bit different.

I still don’t like unpaid internships.

It's origins are slightly different from that. It was first meant as a way to avoid having to pay worker's comp. A football player died from an in game injury and his family wanted to be compensated. It was then used as a tool to just avoid paying athletes.

Just because an unpaid position can lead to a paid position doesn't mean it actually will. In one instance I oversaw a couple dozen interns knowing none of them would receive an offer for a paid position, but you couldn't tell them that. I found the practice to be abhorrent. Anyone doing work of value deserves reasonable compensation for their work.

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21 minutes ago, Dog of England said:

I would suspect that if one uses a lawyer in California to write up a will using California law, then that person's intentions are pretty clear. Not using a French lawyer and French law also shows the intent of the person. As such a court has to take that into account which they did.

Where is the problem?

And I would assume that Simone knew that and wanted it that way.  If she wanted her family to get half her estate, she could have easily willed it that way in either the US or France.  If she wanted to have 100% of her estate go to charity, she needed to make her will in the US, and that is exactly what she did.  I'm not well versed on the details of this case, but the idea that the family could argue that the will doesn't apply because of French law sounds very questionable to me. 

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On 6/21/2021 at 9:51 AM, DMC said:

I agree that the attacks from the left on Kamala as prosecutor are, by and large, not racially motivated.  However, I wish the people leveling these incendiary offensives would take into account she was/is an ambitious black female politician and why that obstacle influences a lot of the prior behavior they object to at the time.

Eh, I wouldn't go that far.  "Textualism" is still largely a bullshit "ideology" built on a house of cards that every conservative jurist will readily abandon if they happen to disagree.

To your first point, I agree. That's what I reckoned with and allowed me to let go of some of those criticisms. I can't imagine the expectations she felt pressing back against her due her race--and, often, we've seen politicians adopt semi-right leaning approaches to help quiet their attacks.

On 6/21/2021 at 10:14 AM, Tywin et al. said:

Klobuchar has an equally spotty record from her time as Hennepin County prosecutor, but it was largely a nonissue during the primary. Klobuchar is also one of the most moderate Senators while Harris had one of the most liberal voting records. It’s hard for me to conclude that race didn’t play a role in the attacks on Harris.

You would be hard pressed to find anyone who attacked Kamala's cop record who wasn't more horrified by Klobuchar as a candidate--but Klobuchar was never the front runner, and your protests about how she was treated came when Kamala was a front runner. And, even then, Klobuchar was rightfully called out for her utterly shitty practices.

ETA: After seeing DMC said something similar, what was Klobuchar polling at? Did she ever poll above 1 percent? Why would anyone attack her for the same thing when she was beyond a long shot to secure a nomination. She got plenty of criticism leveled at her as she continued to stay in the race and people finally had to take notice of her. 

Here's a NYT article from Feb 2021 that went after her on it: Klobuchar Ramped Up Prosecutions, Except in Cases Against Police - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

I guess this might have been at the height of her polling, I can't remember--did she have a good debate or something before Biden showed back up in the polls? Either way, it wasn't about race. It was about who was on top.

On 6/21/2021 at 10:27 AM, TrackerNeil said:

I find that about 50% of what liberals do about racism is purely performative. And I am a liberal!

I think so too. And this performative aspect has truly hurt the party.

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37 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Just because an unpaid position can lead to a paid position doesn't mean it actually will. In one instance I oversaw a couple dozen interns knowing none of them would receive an offer for a paid position, but you couldn't tell them that. I found the practice to be abhorrent. Anyone doing work of value deserves reasonable compensation for their work.

Jesus Christ! Between these kind of shenanigans and the whole prison labour (including fire fighters) working for virtually nothing (throw in exploited illegal immigrants on top) it sure feels like the U.S. is sure trying its best to bring back slavery! 

I would never call myself a Marxist, but somehow it sure feels like when he described the excesses of capitalism that would lead to its downfall he had the U.S. of the early 21st century in mind. 

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1 hour ago, Dog of England said:

I would suspect that if one uses a lawyer in California to write up a will using California law, then that person's intentions are pretty clear. Not using a French lawyer and French law also shows the intent of the person. As such a court has to take that into account which they did.

Where is the problem?

Why ask me? I am firmly on team Harris on this one. She did her job. I can see the Simone family being unhappy about not being allowed to milk the cash cow. But they should take it up either with Nina Simone's lawyers, or go on one of those American medium shows to take their grievance to Nina Simone herself.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I would imagine it would be rather depressing to have make your argument knowing a justice probably doesn't care about what you're saying.

It's origins are slightly different from that. It was first meant as a way to avoid having to pay worker's comp. A football player died from an in game injury and his family wanted to be compensated. It was then used as a tool to just avoid paying athletes.

Just because an unpaid position can lead to a paid position doesn't mean it actually will. In one instance I oversaw a couple dozen interns knowing none of them would receive an offer for a paid position, but you couldn't tell them that. I found the practice to be abhorrent. Anyone doing work of value deserves reasonable compensation for their work.

I agree entirely.  It also favors the previously well off who can afford to take an “unpaid internship” while others cannot.

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20 minutes ago, Ser Reptitious said:

Jesus Christ! Between these kind of shenanigans and the whole prison labour (including fire fighters) working for virtually nothing (throw in exploited illegal immigrants on top) it sure feels like the U.S. is sure trying its best to bring back slavery! 

I would never call myself a Marxist, but somehow it sure feels like when he described the excesses of capitalism that would lead to its downfall he had the U.S. of the early 21st century in mind. 

The older I get, the more shit I learn about, the more I think the history of this country is dominated by the desire for cheap, powerless labor.

 

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1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

And I would assume that Simone knew that and wanted it that way.  If she wanted her family to get half her estate, she could have easily willed it that way in either the US or France.  If she wanted to have 100% of her estate go to charity, she needed to make her will in the US, and that is exactly what she did.  I'm not well versed on the details of this case, but the idea that the family could argue that the will doesn't apply because of French law sounds very questionable to me. 

I’d have to try to re-read all the links, but I’m not sure Simone used an American lawyer to write the will. Did you see that in a story? And in any event that might be irrelevant. There’s a whole area of the law called Conflicts, and the cases can be extremely complex. It deals with conflicting jurisdictions and just which country’s laws should be followed. In contracts you can choose the jurisdiction, and very commonly, whether a dispute has to go to arbitration instead of a court, something that often hurts consumers. But in matters like wills, the governing law is usually the law of the country of domicile, where you actually live, not your citizenship or a place where you visit your children, for property in that jurisdiction. You can make two, three or ten wills if you own property in different countries. In many countries you can have two wills, one to deal with personal property and one to deal with business property.

The fact that Kelly sued the law firm for choosing the wrong jurisdiction to file probate is actually quite interesting. To me it still comes down to her personal conflict of interest, being the trustee of a charity and using the money that was left to the charity to try to disenfranchise the charity. There’s also another back story here that I haven’t seen any explanation of - she wasn’t the trustee named in the will, Miriam Makeba was, and she transferred the trusteeship to Kelly. I wonder if Kelly pushed her to do that, I see Makeba died in 2008, perhaps she was ill. 

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1 hour ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

I think so too. And this performative aspect has truly hurt the party.

And doesn't help people of color. Like, would George Floyd or Sandra Bland still be alive if more liberals had posted the right memes on Facebook?

The older I get, the less tolerant I become of self-righteousness. In fact, I see more harm done by people who are sure they are right, than by those who think they might be wrong.

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Depressing new article about the situation in Afghanistan. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afghanistan-militias-taliban/2021/06/22/f8fa35c0-d34b-11eb-b39f-05a2d776b1f4_story.html

Basically, as US troops are withdrawing the Taliban has been overrunning more and more of the country. In response to the failure of Afghan government troops to stop the Taliban, the Afghan President and other leaders have been explicitly calling for private militias to step up in the fight. And they have been, primarily in the northern parts of the country; a "Northern Alliance" if you will.

In other words, after 20 years, $2.26 trillion, 2,240 dead US soldiers, 19,950 wounded US soldiers, and all the dead and wounded of our various allies, the situation is returning to the exact same place it was before. Right down to Massoud's younger brother taking his place as a key anti-Taliban leader.

This isn't to say the US should've stayed there in a literal forever war. And, unlike Iraq, I do think the initial invasion of Afghanistan was a just war. But what a colossal waste this has all been.

 

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3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

This is kind of an odd caveat; it’s definitely true, but the criticisms to me seem to be more grounded in the belief that she presumably still is an ambitious Black female politician, and that those same obstacles that influenced her actions as a prosecutor are all still in effect, and  there isn’t much evidence to suggest that her stances have shifted more than nominally.

I don't know--I feel like when she got to the Senate, she seemed to have more room to align on issues differently. I know some see that as evidence of her positioning herself for a Presidential run in the progressive lane, which may be true, but I also think that getting out of prosecutorial work (which fundamentally aligns you with police interests) allowed her to maybe be truer to herself. Who knows. But she definitely had a good voting record in the Senate--which I think why her shift toward the center in the primaries upset people, and also gave them more evidence that her time in the Senate was political as opposed to ideological.

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3 hours ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

You would be hard pressed to find anyone who attacked Kamala's cop record who wasn't more horrified by Klobuchar as a candidate--but Klobuchar was never the front runner, and your protests about how she was treated came when Kamala was a front runner. And, even then, Klobuchar was rightfully called out for her utterly shitty practices.

Sure, but the degree of vitriol was noticeably different. Klobuchar's record was a news cycle and that was about it, whereas Kamala still gets hit with "Kamala the cop" by people trying to swipe at her. Focusing on who was leading misses the point to some degree, because it kept up after she dropped out if I remember the timeline correctly, and it's not like both weren't being considered for the VP pick.

I don't have stats or studies to cite for you, but it's well known that African Americans in law enforcement face a lot of skepticism from their own communities, and it can be used as a cudgel against them. From what I personally saw among my friends, both liberal activists and casual observers of politics, most of the attacks that Kamala is a cop came from minorities, specifically African Americans. It's hard not to conclude race played a role in the different degrees in intensity of the attacks, even if it wasn't necessarily the main motivation.

3 hours ago, Ser Reptitious said:

Jesus Christ! Between these kind of shenanigans and the whole prison labour (including fire fighters) working for virtually nothing (throw in exploited illegal immigrants on top) it sure feels like the U.S. is sure trying its best to bring back slavery! 

I would never call myself a Marxist, but somehow it sure feels like when he described the excesses of capitalism that would lead to its downfall he had the U.S. of the early 21st century in mind. 

It's been a pretty common practice in the U.S. for a while. The experience I referenced was the last time I ever did anything like that because I found the whole thing to be shameful. And to be clear, it's not like the interns didn't gain some valuable experience and got special access to various things, but the practice of pitting them against one another for jobs that may not exist is terrible.

I used to be more open to paid internships that paid below the minimum wage, but lately I've had to conclude that's not alright either. My first paid political internship was as an aide to a state senator, getting $75 a week, but I was working 20-30 hours, which put me below the minimum wage. Luckily I had a boss that would also give me gas money and pay for my meals while working, but most EOs didn't. The experience was further complicated because I did get three or four mid level college credits for it, but I was still paying for them through tuition. I wouldn't take the experience back for a second, yet I think the right conclusion is to say that I should have been paid at least the minimum wage as it interfered with me being able to have a part time job (I had one, but I was working like two 4-6 hour shifts on the weekend and that was it).

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2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

And doesn't help people of color. Like, would George Floyd or Sandra Bland still be alive if more liberals had posted the right memes on Facebook?

The older I get, the less tolerant I become of self-righteousness. In fact, I see more harm done by people who are sure they are right, than by those who think they might be wrong.

I mean, you're 100 percent right. What would have saved them all boils down to a complete restructuring of our criminal justice system and police. Ending the Patriot Act and removing military level equipment (and funding) from police forces would help. Reforming or Defunding the police so that a significant percentage of the force are trained social workers, crisis counselors, etc., would be great. I know people hate the Defund slogan, but if we ended the Patriot Act, that'd be a great defunding step, and it doesn't end the police.

But the 'branding' of the party leaves me cynical. It's like on Juneteenth, Door Dash's Twitter account posted some vapid gesturing about the struggles of black people--and the vast majority of replies to them were "pay your fucking workers." At some point, if we want to actually help persecuted groups, we have to actually do something. 

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2 hours ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

I mean, you're 100 percent right. What would have saved them all boils down to a complete restructuring of our criminal justice system and police. Ending the Patriot Act and removing military level equipment (and funding) from police forces would help. Reforming or Defunding the police so that a significant percentage of the force are trained social workers, crisis counselors, etc., would be great. I know people hate the Defund slogan, but if we ended the Patriot Act, that'd be a great defunding step, and it doesn't end the police.

I feel as though many people really don't know what "defund the police" would really mean; it's a way to signal solidarity with racial justice. And, look, I'm not necessarily against virtue-signaling, which is what is happening when a coffee shop puts a rainbow flag in the window to let gay people know you are safe here. I just want that signaling to accomplish something more than making the signal-sender feel good.

Also, whenever I ask someone what defund the police means, I usually get an answer that is pretty much reform the police. I make it a point of not getting hung up on slogans; I just want to know what we're going to actually do.

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The concept/practice of unpaid interns has always fealt a bit offensive to me.

I have a family member that did one of these (unpaid internships) for a medical office that apparently regularly churns through the kids milking up free labor and then discarding them for the next "trial batch".

Someone will always take advantage, that's why when it comes to things like labor protections we can't or at least shouldn't, rely on the honor system or that employers will just do the chivalrous thing like offering unpaid interns solely as a opportunity and not a chance for free labor to deal with tedious stuff they don't want to be bothered with.

Shame on the bad apples that ruin things for the rest of the world. And unfortunately, more than a few employers are just that, bad apples that left unchecked will exploit the innocent.

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9 hours ago, Fez said:

Depressing new article about the situation in Afghanistan. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afghanistan-militias-taliban/2021/06/22/f8fa35c0-d34b-11eb-b39f-05a2d776b1f4_story.html

Basically, as US troops are withdrawing the Taliban has been overrunning more and more of the country. In response to the failure of Afghan government troops to stop the Taliban, the Afghan President and other leaders have been explicitly calling for private militias to step up in the fight. And they have been, primarily in the northern parts of the country; a "Northern Alliance" if you will.

In other words, after 20 years, $2.26 trillion, 2,240 dead US soldiers, 19,950 wounded US soldiers, and all the dead and wounded of our various allies, the situation is returning to the exact same place it was before. Right down to Massoud's younger brother taking his place as a key anti-Taliban leader.

This isn't to say the US should've stayed there in a literal forever war. And, unlike Iraq, I do think the initial invasion of Afghanistan was a just war. But what a colossal waste this has all been.

 

Its been so long, so this isnt meant as gotcha, but what was just about it?

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4 hours ago, Isalie said:

Its been so long, so this isnt meant as gotcha, but what was just about it?

It was a war in defense of our own rights, specifically the right to life, against an enemy that demonstrated a willingness and ability to violate that right. The Afghan government at the time aided and abetted a massive terrorist attack that killed just under 3,000 US civilians. The US government, as with any government, has the right and responsibility to defend the rights of its citizens. It was just to go to war to prevent such a violation of rights from occurring again, as well as to bring justice those who caused the previous violation.

That doesn't mean staying there for 20 years was just. But the initial invasion and attempt to capture Bin Laden was just. When we didn't get him at the battle of Tora Bora in Dec. 2001, and when we got caught up in ethnic grudge settling, that's when thing started to go downhill.

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For all that Supreme Court politics can be complicated, sometimes they are very straightforward too. New 6-3 ruling, exactly how you'd expect, stating that California's access regulation, which allowed union organizers set-aside time on agricultural property is unconstitutional. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-107_ihdj.pdf

Roberts wrote the opinion, and he did at least take care to explicitly state that government-authorized property incursions, like health and safety inspections, are a different thing from this and are not impacted in any way by the ruling. The plaintiffs had wanted to essentially prevent the government from entering property for any reason.

In other rulings:

A new 8-1 opinion by Breyer reinforcing first amendment rights at high schools. This was specifically a case where a cheerleader was punished for a vulgarity she posted to Snapchat; which is now forever part of the Supreme Court record:

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The first image B. L. posted showed B. L. and a friend with middle fingers raised; it bore the caption: “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.”

So that's fun (Thomas was the lone dissent, he censored the "fucks" there). Anyway, they ruled that the school couldn't punish her for that. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf

A complicated ruling regarding the Federal Housing Finance Agency that I'll let someone else figure out. The one part I understood was that they ruled the part of the FHFA law saying the President can't fire the agency head is unconstitutional. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-422_k537.pdf

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ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined in full; in which KAGAN and BREYER, JJ., joined as to all but Part III–B; in which GORSUCH, J., joined as to all but Part III–C; and in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined as to Parts I, II, and III–C. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion. GORSUCH, J., filed an opinion concurring in part. KAGAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which BREYER and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined as to Part II. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which BREYER, J., joined.

And lastly a ruling slightly expanding the 4th amendment; saying that police pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect does not automatically grant the right to warrantless home entry. Instead it's a case-by-case issue. It's another complicated line-up, but the majority is basically the 3 liberals, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-18_cb7d.pdf

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